Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok...I am new to all this stuff and well...I want to know what all these terms mean....What is HET...and PIED...all I know is that I have 4 snakes...colors are a little different on each of them...what is "normal" when it comes to ball pythons?

"Het" means it carries a recessive gene for a certain trait, or morph. "Pied" is short for piebald, which is a color variation in which some or most of the snake's body is pure white, not including the head.

A "normal" ball python is just that. No recessive genes, and no color variations.

"Het" is slang for "heterozygous". A gene pair is heterozygous if the two genes in the pair are not the same. A snake is a het if it has a gene pair that is heterozygous. The two genes in a heterozygous gene pair could be a normal gene and a recessive mutant gene, a normal gene and a dominant mutant gene, a normal gene and a codominant mutant gene, or two different mutant genes.

Many herpers believe that a heterozygous gene pair must contain a normal gene and a recessive mutant gene and that a het animal must look normal. A snake with a gene pair made up of a normal gene and recessive mutant gene does look normal, and for many years there were only normal and recessive mutant genes known. But when an animal has a heterozygous gene pair made up of a normal gene and a dominant (or codominant) mutant gene or of two different mutant genes, the animal does not look normal.

The next thing you need to learn is the definition of dominant, codominant, and recessive mutant genes.

I will try to keep my reply very basic!
There are all sorts of morphs available these days. A morph can be color or pattern or both. In a simple recessive trait like piebald which is a animal with big blothes of pure white, If a homozygous animal ,which is a visible morph that is obviously different by the pure white blotches (piebald) is bred to a normal animal the clutch will all look normal but be 100% het for piebald. So if a male 100% het is bred to a female 100% het ,although both parents are normal looking there is a 25% chance of producing a visual homozygous animal (piebald)

Same situation if your child has blue eyes but the father has brown and the mother has green Both parents are het for blue eyes! Then as someone else stated theres dominant ,co dominant ,simple recessive and double hets tripple hets etc.....
But for now a het is a normal looking animal that carries a gene for a morph......Be aware if buying hets that a 50% het means that animal has a 50% chance of being normal as well as het for said morph.

Here is an album with some pics of 2 of my snakes and one of thier enclosures...the last 3 pics are of one of my females....she is MUCH lighter in color than the rest of my snakes
My Snakes

direct link to Isabella pics

She is a normal with some nice blushing and a fun pattern. But just a normal. All of yours are by the looks of things. If they were bought from a pet store or newspaper ad, or if you paid less than 150 bucks each, chances are very good that they are normals. Normals come in many shades, from pretty dark, to more chocolate colored, to almost golden. They are so pretty really!

Isabella is a pretty girl...we got her out of the local trade newspaper...same with Angus....Julius Squeezer came from the local pet store...and Lola...probably the sweetest of the bunch...now turned rather agressive and striking at everything that moves came from someone who sold her to the pet store...her agressiveness i quess is coming from the fact it is breeding season...no other explanation I can think of because she was very laid back before...we have to wear gloves now when we take her out of the enclosure to feed...she strikes as soon as we reach in...after we get her out and hold her she is fine...just strikes at anything coming towards her...I hope that changes after breeding season..

this is a great pic that illustrates how different "just normals" can be. These are both normal BPs, and both very different patterns.
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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."

sorry, try that again....
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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."

man I'm bad at this puter stuff...

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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."